30 Day OTP Challenge - Sans x Alphys
by SquareRootOf-1
Summary: [Story hiatused indefinitely] Random little challenge I decided to do. It's a series of one-shots revolving around Sans and Alphys and what would happen if they fell in love. They are not my true OTP, but I decided to use them for the challenge anyway because my real one is hard(er) to write. Rated T for obvious reasons. Nothing too graphic.
1. Meeting

Yup. I, SquareRootOf-1 (see what I did there? Heh... heh? Never mind), have decided to attempt a 30-day OTP challenge!

Amalgam kinda died. I guess part of the reason why I'm doing this is to make up for it. Also because I wanted to try something new.

Warning: I suck at writing romance, so a lot of these one-shots will probably be pure cringe, but I decided that this would be the best way for me to improve my romance-writing skills. Will it work? We shall see.

You've probably guessed by now that the Royal Scientist trio are pretty much my most favorite Undertale characters ever, and a few days ago I realized that Sans and Alphys actually wouldn't be a bad ship. I don't really have any other ones that I really ship right now, so Sans x Alphys is currently, because there are no other options, my Undertale OTP. (Edit: if you've read the note at the end of Day 3, you'll know that I now have a true OTP that I'm not revealing yet.)

Disclaimer: this OTP challenge does not take place in the same timeline or even universe as Shattered (my main fanfic). Any similar non-canon events happening are due to either coincidence or habit. Just to clear that up, in case any of you have read or are still continuing to read Shattered and are confused about what's going on in these one-shots compared to what is currently unfolding there.

Disclaimer number 2: as I mentioned before, I am aware that this fluffy stuff may not be my best work, and it might not be the most well-written. It definitely doesn't compare to my main story, but I'm trying. Thanks for being patient with me and my awkward romance-writing skills. Lol.

Anyway...

Uh...

Enjoy?

* * *

Sans would never forget the day he first met Alphys.

He had been so young then, only seven monster years old. Even down in the Underground, it was a cold and windy day, relentless gusts buffeting anything that wasn't tied down and sending all manner of objects, ranging from trash cans to blueprints, tumbling off into the unknown. To make matters worse, the narrow corridors of Waterfall channelled the gales like wind tunnels, blowing wind in Sans's face. He and his father Dr. Gaster braced against the wind and clutched sheafs of paper to their chests.

 _I can't lose these. They're too important._

Just as Sans was thinking that, an especially strong gust of wind caught the corner of one of the papers he'd been holding and tore it out of his hands.

"Dad! I'll get it!" Sans yelled, sprinting after the rogue document while tightening his grip on those that remained. To his horror, it blew down the hall of Echo Flowers more rapidly than he could run, even though he was straining himself to the edge of his ability.

He ran faster.

"No, no, _no!"_ Sans cried, watching the document turn the corner to the Garbage Dump. It'd be soaked by the sewage water instantly. Chasing a fading hope, he went the way it had gone. Miraculously, it'd landed on the top of an old cooler, and Sans grabbed it, muttering gratefully. He took a moment to catch his breath. As he did, he detected another faint sound coming from farther in the Garbage Dump over the constant wail of the wind: crying.

"Who's there?" Sans called out cautiously, wading into the water.

Only sniffles returned.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

"H-h-hello?" A quivering voice stammered back. It clearly belonged to a female monster around Sans's age. She sniffed a few times before adding, "over here. B-behind this mound of trash."

Sans moved towards the sound, looked behind the massive pile of trash bags and saw her.

She seemed to be an orange reptilian monster. She was curled in on herself, tail wrapped around her whole body and obscuring her face, and seemed to be clutching a DVD box as if it were her lifeline. She looked so small, so helpless. She didn't even look up when Sans entered her hiding place and continued to sob, tears winding their way down her scales and dripping soundlessly into the sluggish water.

A few sloshing footsteps alerted Sans to his father's arrival. He looked at the lizard, startled, and gently asked, "what's wrong?"

"I-I was thrown out of my home," the monster sniffled. "M-my parents f-f-finally got fed up with m-me and l-left me out here to d-d-d-d-die…"

She was stuttering so much from her tears and her grief after telling her story that she fell silent.

Sans was seven years old, innocent, and not truly understanding of the lizard monster's pain. How could he, when a life of prestige as the son of the Royal Scientist was all he had ever known? Wanting to comfort her, he simply said, "I'm so sorry. That's _really_ mean."

Fury blazed in Dr. Gaster's eyes. "How dare they," he growled under his breath. Changing his tone to one Sans knew he reserved for small animals and crying children, he asked, "what's your name?"

"A-Alphys."

Feeling a pang in his soul, Sans reached out his hand to Alphys. "Come on," he said quietly. Alphys peered up from her hiding place, tail still resting on her snout, and shrank away a little in reluctance before taking hold of Sans's hand. She allowed Sans to pull her up and stood in front of the two skeletons with unsteady legs.

"Th-thank you," she whimpered, still clutching her DVD–Sans saw, now, that it was an anime, rescued from the depths of the Garbage Dump–in her claws.

"Alphys," Sans's father said quietly, "do you want to come with us?"


	2. Realization

A long time had passed since Sans and his father first took Alphys in, and so much had changed. Sans had a younger brother now. On the darker side of things, Dr. Gaster's wife had passed away around a year ago due to illness, and the pain of her death still hung over the family.

The last day of their normal life seemed like any other. Sans and Alphys woke to the incessant beeping of their alarm clocks and sleepwalked through their morning routines, finally stumbling to the main room for breakfast where Alphys tried to wake them both up by chattering about the last episode of anime she'd watched. Papyrus, Sans's younger brother, was now almost the age Sans had been when he'd first met Alphys. He sat alone in his room now. Sans could hear him yell "boom, crash!" as his plastic superheroes battled sock puppets to save their miniature world.

So innocent, just like Sans had been.

"Good morning, you two," Dr. Gaster called. He had slipped on a lab coat over his usual dark robe like an afterthought. "I wanted to let you know that I have business to attend to at the CORE today. I apologize about leaving you alone here, but the errand I have to run is quite important, and I will not be gone long anyways. You will take care of the work, I trust?"

Both Sans and Alphys nodded obediently. Papyrus carried on yelling in his room.

"Good. Thank you for understanding. I am so sorry. I promise I will see you both by tonight."

Famous last words.

Maybe it was something to do with intuition, but the moment the telegram arrived, Papyrus burst into tears, as if he knew what was wrong before any of the others did. As his eyes scanned the spidery handwriting on the paper, Sans's soul sank.

No, no, no.

How could everything be turned upside down in just one day?

Sans couldn't believe how naive he'd been, believing there was no chance this would ever happen. He'd learned the hard way that good things never lasted as long as anyone would like. Now he and Alphys knew why Dr. Gaster never returned from the CORE.

No one was really sure how it had happened. Wild rumors were already beginning to circulate like wildfire, whisperings of "falling into his own creation" and "an experiment gone wrong". But the speculation didn't matter. What mattered was the cold truth. Sans, Alphys, and Papyrus were orphans now. Their father was gone, and he was never coming back.

"Oh, Papyrus," Alphys pleaded, taking the crying child in her arms and hugging him close to her even as tears collected in her own eyes. "We must all stay strong, young one. All of us. Only then can we get through this."

Sans felt a strange new feeling spread from his soul to his entire body, filling all of his bones with a sensation of warmth he had never experienced before.

His best friend was a lot of things. Shy, bubbly, enthusiastic, hardworking, passionate, funny, smart, completely and totally anime-obsessed… but this was the real Alphys. This was the monster girl he had known since he was seven. Sans could see her love, her dedication to the family that wasn't even hers by blood, shining through, and it warmed his heart. He knew she was grieving, too–her body trembled, and she sobbed bitterly while she held young Papyrus close. But she was willing to be strong for others, and Sans admired that.

"H-hey… Sans?"

Realizing he had hidden his face behind his hands as he too began to cry, Sans looked up and met Alphys's eye. Papyrus stood next to her. He stared off into space with his eyes unfocused as if his tears had already been spent.

Soundlessly, Alphys sat down on the couch next to Sans. They didn't need any words to communicate their feelings. The two of them leaned against one another, still reeling from the sudden grief that had stricken them like a lightning bolt incinerating all it touched. Without having to talk at all, they were holding one another up, each preventing the other from falling.

Sans and Alphys had always known each other as foster brother and sister. That was it. Nothing more. But now, with Alphys so close, Sans felt it again. The warmth. This time, it was coupled with a tug from within his rib cage, as if his soul itself had found its sense of direction at long last. He had a feeling he knew what it was, and it scared him.

 _Not here. Not now. I'm not ready for any of this. Heck, I'm not even sure if I_ want _any of this._

Alphys trembled against Sans, as he knew he must be doing, too. Her tears soaked through Sans's lab coat into his hoodie. He couldn't bring himself to mind. For a moment it seemed that they were all there was: two silent figures huddling close as the only family they had ever known fell apart around them.

* * *

Oh god. This wasn't so great.

Welp... I tried.

Yeah, this is the same scene from Amalgam, except with totally different things going on between the characters. I couldn't figure out how else Sans could realize he had feelings for Alphys anywhere beyond friendship. I knew it had to happen before all the Toriel/Asgore drama, and this scene had (conveniently) already been written by me quite a while ago. So I decided to use it. Yay me...?

So... see you in the next chapter, and thank you for reading!


	3. Reveal

"N-n-no…" Alphys whimpered to herself, crumpling yet another letter in her claws and letting it fall into the wastebasket. "I-I just want it all to be o-over…"

It was just a mistake. An accident.

A tremendous, unforgivable accident.

 _I tried to help, and what happened? The Amalgamates happened. It's all my fault. Because of me, those monsters will never be able to go home. I really thought I was going to succeed and save monsterkind,_ Alphys thought with a mix of bitterness and remorse. _So disgustingly optimistic. I should have realized this would happen. I am hopeless, I am incompetent, I am an idiot, I–_

"Alphys?"

The Royal Scientist turned in her chair, still trembling. Through her tears she could vaguely make out Sans standing in the doorway of her room. He had been her assistant through all this, her constant companion, but Alphys believed that she alone deserved the blame. "What do you want?" she sniffed, swiveling the chair back to face her workstation. She wanted many things right now, none of which involved conversation. She thought about the Garbage Dump, the dirty, dark place where she'd once been thrown away like garbage and left to die. Next time she went to Waterfall, she might just go there again, go to death again. This time no one would come for her.

"Hey."

Alphys was vaguely aware of the fact that Sans had just sat down on her table. She didn't have the heart to tell him to go away.

"Alphys. Stop. I know what you're thinking."

Sans rested his hand on Alphys's shoulder, as if steadying her–providing a tether she could hold onto. Strangely, she didn't have the slightest urge to shrug it off, even as the blackness consumed her from the inside.

"It's my fault," Alphys wailed. "I deserve whatever's coming for me."

"No. Please. Don't say that."

Looking up and meeting Sans's gaze, she saw a hardness in his eyes that hadn't been there before. _Stay strong,_ it seemed to tell her. _Stay strong because you have to. I need you to._

"There's no excuse for what I've done," Alphys persisted. "Sans…"

"Alphys…"

"I just want it to be over," Alphys confessed. "I was thinking…"

"No. Stop." Sans held a finger to Alphys's mouth to stop her flow of words. "I really... this hurts, Alphys. To know that you're thinking that. You didn't know what was going to happen. You meant well. All this time, all you've ever tried to do is help people."

Alphys pushed Sans's finger away. "I didn't," she snapped. "I hurt them. Harmed them. _Look_ at what I've created!"

"Alphys, it doesn't matter what happened in the past," Sans said, and Alphys sensed he had surprised himself with his own words. "Mistake? Time to fix it. Although…" he trailed off. "Never mind."

"What were you going to say, Sans?"

"Nothing."

Reluctantly, Alphys let it go.

All of a sudden she was aware of how close she and Sans were now. They had started almost at opposite corners of the worktable, but now they were both sitting with their legs hanging off the side. When had she climbed onto the table? When had Sans come so close? What?

"Hey. Alphys?"

"Huh?"

"Please, don't give up, okay? You can get through this. Even after this, there's a lot for you to live for. People who care about you. People who will always love you for the person you are, no matter what mistakes you make."

Sans was probably saying that just to comfort her, but something in Alphys stirred. Was it just her, or was there something deeper–something more–in his words?

"What do you mean, Sans?" Alphys whispered, not daring to believe it. Not allowing herself to believe it.

"Alphys," Sans breathed, "I really, really like you. Do you know that?"

Alphys felt her heart flutter. Never, in a million years, had she ever believed that one day, somebody would say those words to her. Love was for powerful warriors and anime girls with cat ears. Not for a nerd like her who merely watched their adventures and their lives, wishing they were her own. It had seemed like a mirage, a beautiful, distant dream, but in the end it was just that. A dream. Unattainable. So it surprised her even more when she replied, "me too."

And she meant it.

In the depths of her despair, Sans had come, and he had pulled her back from the brink. Alphys wouldn't let her life go so easily. Not any more. Not when she had finally found someone to live for.

* * *

Hi! I'm sorry I took so long to post this new chapter. I swear my workload from school tripled out of the blue. Today's a public holiday where I live, though, so I had time to finish this up.

To the people who also read Shattered: Sorry, I know I haven't written anything in two weeks. I'm finally starting on the next chapter. If not today, it'll be published sometime later this week, probably Wednesday or Thursday.

And there's something else I feel like I should tell you guys...

You know when I said, in the beginning of all this, that Sans x Alphys was only my temporary OTP until I found another? Well... I did. I have a true OTP now. It also involves one of my 3 favorite characters. If you know what I'm suggesting. I suppose people can guess, but I'm not revealing it until I feel like it, which is probably much later. ;)

This does NOT mean that this challenge will be discontinued. I am going through with this all the way through to 30, no matter how long it may take.


	4. First Date

Although Frisk had already saved monsterkind and all that, Sans couldn't help but retain a shred of mistrust for the kid. She'd done nothing bad so far, sure. Killed nobody in all her time down Underground–not a small achievement for a human. On top of that, she hadn't even reset yet, though Sans was aware she knew how.

Still.

Something about the immense power she held unnerved him more than a little bit. To think that one little human child had the ability to reverse everything he'd ever worked for this timeline. In a way, she had some terrible timing there, dropping in just as Sans had thrown himself skull-first into a wilder situation than he'd ever expected to encounter in, well, his life. Even now, he was amazed at himself for confessing his feelings to Alphys back in the Underground. In this world, any relationship formed was a relationship risked, all too easy to erase upon the next reset.

So Sans had surprised himself even more when he finally asked Alphys out. She had told him yes, of course, after no shortage of dramatic anime freak-out moments.

 _This is sealing the deal,_ Sans thought to himself as he stood alone in his room, trying to ignore the jumble of thoughts that whirled chaotically through his head like his trash tornado. His and Papyrus's new house on the Surface wasn't all too different from the one they'd lived in underground. Same arrangement of rooms, same stark constrast between the brothers' living spaces, even the same dirty sock on the floor of the living room topped with a chain of notes. Sans silently thanked… whatever it was that controlled the universe that Papyrus was gone at a cooking session with Undyne. If Sans diverged from his brother's dating handbook even a little bit, Papyrus would never let him see the end of it.

The location of Sans and Alphys's first date had been a subject of _debate,_ to say the least. (Sans hadn't actually done any of the arguing and neither had Alphys. Papyrus and Undyne were strangely keen on making sure the date went exactly as _they_ planned, and after bickering for three hours on end had finally settled on Sans and Papyrus's house.)

 _Now, I wait._

It wasn't long before there was a sound like the tapping of claws on the front door. As soon as he opened it for Alphys, Sans found himself pausing for what was probably a little too long of a time for it to be appropriate.

"You look… nice," Sans said lamely, stumbling pathetically over his own words and feeling tongue-tied before he realized he didn't even _have_ a tongue. "Nice" must have been the understatement of the timeline. Sans had no idea what he'd been expecting. He didn't think Alphys would be in her regular lab coat and goggles, of course. But this? She was wearing a black dress long enough to reach the floor. It was decorated with tiny white polka dots, with a hole in the back for her tail to poke through. And the dress was actually _clean,_ a stark contrast to the random clothes she usually threw on every day. A big-eyed, cat-eared anime girl peered out from the video game case she had clutched in her claws.

Upon hearing the compliment, Alphys blushed, which was the cutest thing Sans had ever seen. "You d-don't look too bad yourself," she stammered. He decided not to point out the fact that he was wearing the exact same hoodie, shorts, and sneakers he had had on all day–all _week,_ in fact–because he'd been to lazy to change. The two of them went into the house together, letting the door close behind them, and sat silently on the couch in front of the TV for a long moment.

"So…" Alphys said after a while, breaking the silence that had quickly begun growing awkward, "do you want to, uh, play the game I brought? I know it's probably not what people do on their first dates, but… yeah…"

Sans gave a dry chuckle, remembering how his brother and Frisk had spent their rather tense first–and only–date. "Sure. Let's do it. Only time it'll be quiet enough to, anyways. I'm sure things will get a lot more… interesting when Papyrus gets here."

Almost as if on cue, there was the sound of a key fiddling in the lock before the door banged open. "SANS!" Papyrus yelled. "I'M HOME!"

"I'd never have noticed that," Sans replied with more than a touch of sarcasm, "if you hadn't so helpfully pointed it out."

"How's my bestie?" Undyne called, barging into the living room where Sans and Alphys were. "You didn't do anything to her, did you? If you did… I swear…"

"R-right here, Undyne," Alphys said quickly.

"Safe and sound," Sans added. "Told you you didn't have to worry."  
"Good," Undyne replied smugly, surveying the scene. "Now… anyone up for spaghetti?"

"Yeah, sure," Sans replied. Since they'd left the Underground, Papyrus and Undyne had been working hard to perfect their spaghetti-making skills, to the point where they were actually able to produce edible dishes. It was certainly improvement. Sans couldn't resist taking Alphys's hand as the gang trooped towards the kitchen. Although she let out a small squeak when they came in contact, the Royal Scientist didn't pull away, and squeezed his hand back. Their first date had been brief, and quickly cut off, but it was worth it when Sans thought about the way it had opened the door to so much more.

* * *

Hi! So sorry for the ridiculously long time it took to post this. RL seriously got in my way. I hope that's something that doesn't happen often.

So in the world of this OTP challenge, Alphys and Undyne are best friends, not lovers.

I have to say I felt weird writing the last bit and calling Alphys the Royal Scientist. Weird because she definitely isn't the first person I think of when I hear that. (Only goes to show how out of touch with the Undertale fandom I've grown in my frenzy of work.)

I hope I did well keeping everyone in character. I try. I really do. Welp. See you next time.


	5. Reminder

_This is pointless,_ Sans told himself as he stepped back through the cave opening where the Barrier had once been. He didn't know why he had come here. A need to relive the past, perhaps. Closure he had never really gotten the chance to experience in the wake of the monsters' newfound freedom. For whatever reason, something drew Sans back to the Underground, the place he had known all his life as his home and his prison, one last time.

The hallway he walked through had once seemed so formidable, pulsing with beams of white light, an impenetrable wall sealing the monsters away from the world that had belonged to them. Now it was just that. A hallway. A tunnel of stone that echoed with the howls of the wind, as if the voices of all the monsters who had lived and died beyond it were calling out to whoever could be listening.

"Hello, there," Sans called out, even though he knew it was stupid.

The relentless scream of the wind was the only answer he got.

Retracing the steps he had taken when he had left this place last, Sans backtracked through the king's castle, marveling at how much larger and grander it seemed with nobody home. Its chambers carried a regal air even without the king inside them. Underneath Sans's feet, small golden petals crumpled soundlessly, some of their seeds clinging to his shoes, and he was reminded of the time he wrote a lab entry while working with Alphys all those years ago.

 _Experiments on the vessel are a failure. It doesn't seem to be any different from the control cases. Whatever. They're just a hassle to work with anyway. The seeds just stick to you, and won't let go._

His footsteps started to take on an echoing quality as he entered the Judgement Hall. He looked up at where the columns met the lofty ceiling, every intricate architectural detail illuminated by the light that still poured in through the hallway's enormous stained-glass windows. Each one bore the mark of the Delta Rune as the center of its design. _An angel who has seen the surface will come, and the Underground will go empty._

Entering the elevator that miraculously still worked, Sans punched the single button, leaning against the wall to collect himself as the metal transport bore him down into what had once been the heart of the Underground's energy supply. As he drew closer to Hotland, the weight in his pocket seemed to grow heavier.

The CORE, like the rest of the Underground, had a new vacancy to it that Sans still hadn't quite gotten used to. The machinery that made it up still ground laboriously away, indifferent, it seemed, to the fact that everyone who used to rely on it was long gone to a land of sunlight somewhere far above. It occurred to Sans that everything in the Underground would keep going like this until it simply couldn't anymore–it wasn't like anyone was going to bother to turn it off. It would just continue to _be_ until the day the main generator failed and everything lost power, never to be activated again.

 _A strange thought,_ Sans mused as he wandered deeper into the Underground, into his past. It was only when he reached the Lab that he stopped. This place was a stronghold of memories. The lives of two Royal Scientists had played out within these walls, at least for some time, and the building still seemed to house some piece of their essence. This was where Sans had grown up alongside Alphys, and where he had first realized the extent of his feelings for her. Later on, after his father was already long dead, he and Alphys had forged into the mysteries of Determination and the inner workings of human and monster souls in their secret laboratory, the True Lab. They had faced unimaginable horrors there, horrors of their own creation.

"I'm so glad we pulled through that, Alphys," Sans murmured, thinking of the person he had come to love so much. Reaching into his pocket, he took the vial out and just looked at it for a while, thinking about all it embodied. The red liquid inside, pulsating with magical energy that could never be harnessed, almost felt warm on Sans's hand.

Determination.

He didn't know why he had kept it so long. Chances were, he had taken a sample of Determination for himself for whatever reason and, after the experiments were concluded, was too lazy to dispose of it. Now, he was glad he had at least kept it with him. So much was contained inside this one vial. His and Alphys's lives. Their pain, shame, agony, grief… but also dedication. Loyalty. Perseverance.

And love.

* * *

Again, I'm so sorry about how long this took to upload, and how much work there still is to be done on the next chapter of Shattered before I can publish it. I did mention how our workload suddenly increased, right? Even with days of nonstop work after school, I wasn't able to scrape up much time to work on my fan fiction. I wish that weren't the case. Luckily, school ends on June 13, so I'll have more time to work on these stories after that.

So much for 30-day OTP challenge. Hope you're still enjoying it, though. Thanks so much for your patience!


	6. New to the Family

Technically speaking, Alphys couldn't exactly consider herself _new_ to Sans's family. She had grown up with him and his brother, after all. Even before her relationship with Sans became something beyond friendship, she had been a part of his life just like Papyrus was.

 _Not a new part of the family,_ Alphys thought. _More like a returning member of sorts._

It all felt like so long ago, back when she, Sans, and Papyrus had shared such easy camaraderie. She had grown apart from the skeleton brothers since she became Royal Scientist. She and Sans still worked together, yes, but there had been a new distance between them, something different.

The door of the skeletons' house swung open to reveal Papyrus standing there in his usual armor and red scarf, his face lighting up when he saw Alphys. "You're here!" he cried gleefully. "I thought you'd be late, which would've been a real pity. Now, you get to hang out with us and enjoy the delicious spaghetti I made for you! That's enough talk, though. Come in!"

Alphys gave Papyrus a warm smile, stepping into the house and taking care to remove her shoes by the entrance. "Sans?" she called cautiously into the house. "It's me…"

"Hey, Alphys," Sans said sheepishly, coming out from the kitchen with a plate of spaghetti balanced in each hand. "I was just helping Papyrus set the table. What's up?"

Alphys bit her lip. Why did she still become so awkward whenever Sans looked at her? Whenever he so much as opened his mouth to talk? She could feel the warmth spreading across her cheeks and all over her face, and trembled. "H-hey…"

 _Stupid. That doesn't even make sense!_

"I-" Alphys tried again, and broke off, which made Sans snicker.

"It's nice to see you," he provided.

"Y-yeah…"

"C'mon, Alphys," Sans said with a grin. "Dinner's ready. Glad you could make it."

"I w-wouldn't miss this for the world," Alphys managed, inwardly congratulating herself on being able to form a coherent sentence.

"Heh. Yeah. Which is cool, because I know you're busy with your Royal Scientist stuff, and what with Mettaton starting up his new channel and all… things _do_ become…"

"Interesting."

" _Interesting" being absolute chaos, that is._

The first thing Alphys noticed about the arrangement of the table was the seating: two chairs on one side, and a lone chair on the other. Assuming Sans and Papyrus would take the adjacent seats, Alphys made for the singular one when a hand on her shoulder stopped her.

"Not that one," Papyrus told her gleefully. He nodded at the vacant chair beside Sans. "You get to sit there right next to my brother today so you can do… whatever people do when they're in love!"

Trying hard to shove down the intense blush that threatened to rise and ignore Sans's barely suppressed laughter behind her (which he tried and failed to disguise as a particularly passionate coughing fit) at the same time, Alphys sat where Papyrus had indicated, squeaking out a barely audible "thanks" to him as she did.

"Go ahead!" Papyrus urged, placing a plate of spaghetti in front of Alphys. "You're our guest of honor, so you get to sample my food first!"

Alphys eyed the plate warily, knowing what Papyrus's cooking usually ended up tasting like – after all, the one who had taught him how to make it was her best friend, and they'd had to share plenty of it. But because she was acutely aware of Papyrus's gaze on her, Alphys took a little of the pasta on her fork and nibbled at it.

The flavor was unexpected, to say the least. Not bad, just _unexpected._

"Do you like it?" Papyrus asked her eagerly. "I know it's not exactly like Undyne's cooking, but I tried!"

" _Tried_ as in nearly burnt down the house," Sans smirked.

"Whatever," Papyrus replied, waving his hand dismissively at his brother. "It's just a–what did Undyne call it–part of my learning curve! Nothing to worry about!"

"Right," Sans muttered, unconvinced.

"Your cooking is actually pretty good, Papyrus," Alphys told him honestly.

Papyrus gave a grand flourish and a mock bow. "Of course, of course. Now let's eat!"

The three of them ate mostly in silence, although at one point, Sans took Alphys's free hand in his underneath the table, which sent a pulse of warmth radiating all throughout her body. She trembled slightly in her seat as she struggled to keep herself from smiling idiotically. Here she was in the skeleton brothers' household again, Sans at her side.

So much had happened since she had last been here with them as a part of their family. And how good it felt to finally come back.


End file.
